


These Prison Walls Ain't Got No Love For Me

by WildandWhirling



Category: Marie Antoinette - Levay/Kunze
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Ficlet, Fluff, References to Agnés - Freeform, Reunions, The Bastille
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26550283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WildandWhirling/pseuds/WildandWhirling
Summary: Margrid's time in the Bastille is interrupted by the arrival of the Duc d'Orléans, who comes bearing gifts.
Relationships: Margrid Arnaud/Philippe Égalité
Kudos: 2





	These Prison Walls Ain't Got No Love For Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [janetcarter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/janetcarter/gifts).



> My various feelings about German!Orléans aside, that production DID give us the wonderful gold mine that is Margrid being thrown in the Bastille and being freed by Orléans, which they most DEFINITELY didn't intend for me to abuse. 
> 
> Takes place just before Rohan's pardon, since I decided to tweak the timing of Margrid's time there ever so slightly. I personally had Sonim's Margrid and Mitsuo Yoshihara's Orléans in mind when writing it, hence Orléans being warmer and Margrid being more..........gremlin-like than if you go in expecting the German or Hungarian casts.
> 
> Written for the prompt "Unbind Me", which sadly ended up being much, much less sexy than I was anticipating. Maybe next time.
> 
> No, I am not apologizing for taking the title from a Nickleback song.

Margrid stared upwards at the gray walls, pursing her lips. The Bastille wasn’t as bad as they said, not really. 

No, instead it was just  _ boring _ . Nowhere to go, nothing to do, just pace around and look at the same gray walls, all day, all night, and counting bricks got old after the first day. And the guards were as dull as drying paint, not even giving her the benefit of responding to any of her various questions, comments, and suggestions.    
  
(“It’s a mistake, Monsieur, I promise: It was really my long-lost twin sister!”)

“A visitor for you, Arnaud,” she heard the guard on the other side say. “Be on your best behavior.” 

“Fuck offfffffffffffffffffffffffffff.”

No response.    
  
The wooden door, scratched and indented with markings in at least ten different hands, groaned as it opened up. 

She snorted. “What is it, Agnés? Come to save my soul again?” Agnés meant well, her former teacher’s company one of the few things to break up the boredom, and she supposed she owed her for the books she occasionally loaned her, but there was only so much anyone could hear that they were going to go to Hell if they didn’t abandon their sinful ways before they snapped.    
  
A distinctly deep voice, in a tone bold as brass, replied, “Now, where would the fun in that be?” 

She swerved to face the figure taking up the entire doorway, looking in that moment like a guardian angel, if guardian angels were tall, wore black clothes with silver threads that shone even with the dim torches that lined the Bastille’s walls, and looked a Hell of a lot like the Duc d’Orléans. 

“Orléans!” She didn’t care if she breathed it like a lovestruck heroine in a cheap gothic romance. All she could do was drink in the sight of him, her chest feeling about ready to explode like fucking shrapnel. (She was just bored, she hadn’t missed  _ him _ .)

He held his hands up, and normally, she would have scowled at him smiling now, of all times, but she didn’t care, not when he was right there, in front of her. “In the flesh.” 

“What-How the Hell did you make it here?” No one was allowed into the Bastille that easily,  _ no one _ . Agnés only got in because she could say that she was praying for Margrid’s soul or...something. (Either that, or they heard her speak for five minutes about how they all needed to come back to God and decided that it was a good enough substitute for torture.) “How did you get them to let you in?” 

“I would have liked to see them try to stop me.” He strode over, halfway through the room, with her closing the distance by launching herself at him. He stumbled for a second, legs faltering several steps, before he was returning the kiss, hands roving against her hair. (He really was being good, she thought, he hadn’t even tried for her ass yet.) 

When it broke, he looked at her, eyes warm as he stroked just under her chin. “How are you?”

  
“Oh,” she shrugged, “I’ve been doing fine. You know, I get three meals a day, a nice…” she plopped down on the bed, hearing it creak dangerously beneath her body, “Bed to sleep on. Really, it’s great.” 

She was willing to lose a lot of dignity for the sake of seeing  _ anyone _ , but there was one thing she would never do, and that was openly say to Louis-Philippe Joseph d’Orléans that she was happy to see him. 

“Very well,” Orléans sat by her on the bed, his knees knocking against hers. He gave her an exaggerated look, eyes gleaming beneath the dramatics, before sighing, and if he hadn’t been a Duc, he would have been a Hell of an actor. “I suppose that this pardon will be of no use to you. I should probably go to one of the other cells. I hear the Marquis de Sade is somewhere around here, perhaps-” 

“The fucking what?”

He brandished a piece of paper triumphantly. “Signed by my cousin this morning.” 

She snatched it, her eyes taking in the the signature at the end, seeing it but not believing it because it couldn’t be real, it  _ couldn’t _ . “You-How?” 

  
“I...can...be…” She could feel his smile against her mouth in-between kisses, barely releasing one word before returning to kissing her again, and she didn’t care, because he’d earned it, at this point. He could show off his feathers as much as he wanted and she wouldn’t offer so much as a single eyeroll. “ _ Very _ ...persuasive...and….very....persistent.”

She gave a small, private smile, raising both eyebrows. “You annoyed your cousin to death for me?” She didn’t know why she was so happy. It was his fault, anyway. It shouldn’t have been unusual, seeing an aristocrat clean up his messes.    
  
“As a senior Prince of the Blood, it’s my sworn duty to hand my cousin his shirt at his toilette every single day that I’m in Versailles. And I have been at Versailles  _ very _ frequently lately.”    
  
She shook her head, unable to stop the grin from spreading. “Going after a naked man, I’m impressed.” 

“And it worked.” He laid his forehead against hers. “You’re a free woman, Margrid Arnaud.” 

“Orléans, I-” She wasn’t used to owing someone anything. Most of her life was spent grasping after whatever she could, so whenever she had to deal with something being  _ given _ , she had no idea what to do. He’d probably ask for some form of payment, whether openly or not, because that was how this  _ worked _ , but...until then…She swallowed her pride. “ _ Thank you _ .”

He gestured broadly to the door, “Our public awaits.” 

She didn’t release his hand until the gate to the Bastille had fallen over their heads, his skin burning against hers, and it wasn’t until much later, when the crowd had swarmed her, that she realized that he’d been clinging to her just as tightly.


End file.
